Lessons from the eBook Techno Panic

This was supposed to be the end of paper books. Now e-reader sales have plateaued and books are on the rise. What happened?

By Xische Editorial, January 3, 2020

Source: Akhnazarov Orkhan/Shutterstock

Remember when ebooks were going to transform reading as we knew it? At the start of the 2010s, many analysts predicted the death of the paper book. Amazon’s Kindle e-reader was about three years old at the time and its promise of storing thousands of books at the click of a button was enough for the media to say the traditional book was doomed. The internet age, it was said, killed the paper book and humanity would never be the same. 

Then something strange happened. While ebooks sales continued to increase throughout the early years of the decade, they eventually plateaued. Then paper book sales roared back with a vengeance. By the end of the decade, paper books were once again dominating the market. There are a number of reasons for this swift transition, including Amazon’s unsuccessful attempts to corner publishers into making ebooks cheaper than their paper siblings. Remember how Amazon promised that Kindle books would cost $9.99 across the board? Publishers had other ideas.  The panic underscoring the ebook revolution contains important lessons for our understanding of other technological developments that have people concerned, particularly robotics and automation.  

Let’s consider how we use ebooks today. You probably have an e-reader laying around or use an e-reader application on your smartphone or tablet. The platform is endlessly helpful. Maybe you like to read in bed but the light needed for a traditional book disturbs your spouse. Or you read a few pages on your phone during the work commute. If you are an avid reader, chances are you still find solace in paper books despite the obvious convenience of using e-readers. Or perhaps you want to honor a great book by selecting a paper edition. Ebooks are great but when you really want to immerse yourself in a book and tune out the world, paper is the way to go. 

Rather than erase paper books, E-readers have augmented our reading patterns. This is a far cry from the dominant opinion of the early 2010s that e-readers would end paper books and centralise knowledge in the hands of private companies such as Amazon. Rather, a new technology was developed that now genuinely helps people read more, which is a great thing for society. Reading is a craft and books are tools regardless of whether they are made out of paper or microchips. 

The peculiar case of our reading habits is a great window into another hot topic of conversation (and techno panic): automation and jobs. We are all familiar with the argument that as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) improve, more jobs will be automated, putting humans out of work as robots take over. Around the world, blue-collar workers are growing increasingly concerned and frustrated at the prospect of losing their jobs to robots. Just as our concern over e-readers has proven to be largely unsustained, so too will our concern over robots stealing our jobs. 

The key here is augmentation. It’s abundantly clear that automation and AI will change the way we work. It already has. Consider how software is used in the modern workplace to make the office more efficient and streamlined. Just this week researchers at Google found that AI systems were better than doctors at reading x-rays for breast cancer. That doesn’t mean that AI will take the place of doctors. Far from it. It means that doctors and other medical professionals can now focus on other aspects of their jobs since AI can augment their workload. In other words, the medical profession and other sectors of the economy are going to get better and workers will get more productive as a result of automation and other technologies. 

The ebook revolution demonstrated that we don’t need to be concerned about technology replacing traditional behaviours. What we need to think about is how technology can augment our lives in productive and meaningful ways. This is especially clear with regard to automation and jobs. As computers and robots assist us at work, we will have more time and energy to focus on doing bigger and better things. With the next decade already upon us, these debates will only intensify. It’s helpful to reflect back and realise that we don’t have to be alarmed about how technology will continue to transform our lives. It’s just one more tool in our toolbox.